Metal Mouth Message Board

I was debraced ~2 months ago. I've never had sensitive teeth, but after getting debraced I had wild sensitivity around my upper premolars. I couldn't drink anything cold - I couldn't even use normal cold tap water to rinse after brushing, I had to warm it up first. I was super sensitivity for the fi...

I was debraced a couple of months ago and also need to get my teeth whitened. A few questions:
- How much do trays go for?
- Did your teeth get really sensitive? (mine are still kind of sensitive from getting debraced)
- And has anyone just used their essix retainer instead of getting a tray made?

You'll be puffier than normal for at least 2 months.

Using the expander without surgery usually just tilts the teeth instead of making the bone wider. After your bone growth plates fuse up when you're a child, you can no longer simply "stretch" the bone longer without breaking it first. There was a poster a few years back who vehemently disa...

My surgery was performed by Dr. Relle through Kaiser and had a great experience & outcome. The guy does like 300-400 procedures a year, he's a machine.

When did he leave Kaiser? I just got debraced and was planning on scheduling a concluding follow-up with him for final records.

I too had terrible, horrible congestion for the first week post-op. It made it so I couldn't really sleep at all the first week. I used a neti pot religiously to try to flush out as much of that bloody gunk as possible and it'd give me temporary relief. After the first week it started clearing up by...

It's been a while since I've last posted here, but my ortho journey has finally come to an end. I was debraced this week, 15 months after my surgery, and about 27 months since the braces first went on. I had an asymmetric underbite that was corrected with double jaw surgery, BSSO + three piece Lefor...

thepseudophone, make sure that your surgeon is ok with you taking Advil. Advil is ibuprofen, which has been shown to inhibit bone healing in animals. I was instructed to stick with Tylenol (acetaminophen) if I didn't want to use Lortab/Vicodin (hydrocodone).

I decided to look up the section from Peterson's Principles of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery . From the chapter "Soft Tissue Changes Associated with Orthognathic Surgery": They found that the alar bases widened in all patients and widening was lessened when the alar cinch suture was used....

Suzanna, just curious but how is your upper midline coming along? Is it moving pretty well without the need for IPR? I'm curious because I have the same issue, my upper midline is off by about 2 mm and I've been a little worried about how easy it would be for my ortho to correct.

Did you choose not to have this alar cinch? I'm looking forward to having my nose turned up a bit (it's a bit flat imo), but don't really want it to become wider... I did get the alar cinch, but with upper jaw advancement & expansion, some widening is unavoidable. I was reading through Peterson...

I had a three-piece lefort I where my upper arch was expanded and moved forward very slightly (~1mm), and it did change my nose shape. My nose tilts up slightly more now and the bottom of my nose has widened a little bit. This combination makes my nostrils a lot more prominent now. Even though almos...

Qwertz, thanks for the picture. I didn't realize you could have an overjet/underjet and also have a closed bite.

I"m a little confused - if your incisors don't touch how can you properly bite something thin? When I had my underbite I couldn't bite through certain foods because they were smaller than the gap in my underjet. Wouldn't the same thing happen with thin foods in an overjet?

Your incisors should be touching. My understanding is that surgeons give underbite patients a bit of an overbite on purpose to anticipate relapse. Everyone relapses to a certain degree as the bone fracture knits and firms up. The overbite is small enough your ortho should have no problems correcting...